SOURCE: "Prague through Parisian Eyes," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4221, February 24, 1984, p. 195.

Scruton is an English philosopher, educator, and critic. In the following review of An Umbrella from Piccadilly and The Casting of Bells, he argues that Seifert's writings are representative of Czech literature, but notes that many of the subtleties and nuances of his work get lost in English translation.

During the first republic, the Czech poet Jaroslav Seifert was editor of various Communist Party publications, but left the Party in 1919, on perceiving the true character of [Party leader Clement] Gottwald. When the communists seized power in 1948, they lost little time in stamping out surrealism—a movement with which Seifert's work is clearly associated, and which was automatically suspect, on account both of its Western orientation, and of its love of recondite symbols, behind which unwelcome meanings might be concealed. Seifert continued to publish in the...